Sedona - Sept 2015

Hot Air Balloon Ride over Sedona

We decided to meet Rakesh and Simran in Sedona for the long Labor Day weekend, renting the Sedona Cliff House on VRBO. We flew to Phoenix on the Thursday afternoon, meeting Simran and Ria at the airport at 7:30pm.  Unfortunately, Rak needed to extend a trip to London so he was not able to meet us until Saturday night.  We rented a minivan and arrived at the house at 10:30pm.  Glendon, the owner, lives in the house next door so he and his two chocolate labs met us when we arrived and showed us around the place.  The house was wonderful - it has simple, yet modern architecture with a very open feel to it.  There are three bedrooms and bathrooms with a large kitchen and family room and multiple decks for viewing the scenery.

Sedona Cliff House Rental

Keith was up early on Friday so got some work done.  He and Sim then headed out to town to get stuff for breakfast from Whole Foods, Safeway, and the obligatory Starbucks run for he and Shawna.  Breakfast was then served in the house at 8:30am.  Shawna needed to catch up on some work so we did not leave the house until about 11am.  We decided to stop by Whole Foods again to grab some stuff for lunch.

The first stop of the day was Oak Creek Canyon Vista.  We had thought of eating our picnic there but picnic spots were sparse so we decided to move on to Slide Rock State Park.  After our picnic by the water, Ria went for a swim while Keith had a nap.  It took a few tries for Ria to get comfortable sliding down the rocks and one time, Shawna had to 'rescue' her but once she tried it, we couldn't pull her away!

Slide Rock State Park

Next stop was Page Spring Cellars for wine tasting - we did a couple of white wine flights - the wine was as good as you'd imagine for an AZ vineyard!  We opted to then drive home so we could grab an early dinner.  We ate at Elote Cafe - no reservations are allowed so we showed up at 6pm.  The idea was that if the wait was silly we'd get take out, but it was only 45 mins so we had a couple of drinks on the patio and were called to sit down in less than 30 mins.  The food was delicious - we shared fish tacos and short rib tacos, as well as the elote for appetizers and then shared the fish special as well as the carne asada for entrees.  Keith was wrecked so was in bed by 8:30 - as soon as we got back to the house.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at the house, enjoying cheese and bread.    The four of us then headed out for the Pink Jeep tour.  We did the Broken Arrow tour with Ed the driver.  It was a really fun drive, with some of the trails at 45 degrees.  There were a couple of stops to take photos - just gorgeous.  We also saw the 'white line' which is where mountain bikers ride along the rock at dizzying heights and angles!  We stopped by Wildflower Cafe to grab some bread and sweet treats, and then headed home for Simran to make lunch with leftovers from Elote with eggs and fried bread - excellent!  A nap was had by all, then we headed out to Tlaquepaque shopping area and then back to Whole Foods to grab the ingredients for dinner.  Shawna played DJ until Rak showed up at 8pm - when Shawna served dinner of salmon, corn, asparagus and tomato salad.

Pink Jeep Tour

We had to wake up at 4:30am on Sunday for our hot air balloon flight with Red Rock Balloons.  The flight was gorgeous, starting in the canyon area, then traveling about 7 miles to a landing site.  It was spectacular to see the surrounding scenery in the early morning light.  The company served breakfast (mimosas with muffins and a fruit tray) and then dropped us back at the car.  We headed back to the house and had a brief nap while Rak wrapped up a couple of conference calls.

Hot Air Ballon Ride

We then went to Enchantment Resort for lunch, followed by a hike up the Vista trail.  Following that, we headed to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is in an amazing location.  The traffic back to town was a disaster so we decided to take the long route back to the house via Jerome, an old ghost town cum hippie colony. It was interesting to walk around there and see a town that went from 15,000 to 50 people - and now back to 440 people.  We stopped by Whole Foods again on the way home and grabbed the food for dinner - plus another 6 bottles of wine.  Dinner was yummy rice bowls with grilled chicken and sausage.

Chapel of the Holy Cross

Jerome

After we woke up on Monday, we went for a walk with Sim at Red Rock Crossing (Rak and Ria stayed at the house).  We followed that with a lunch of leftovers before we packed up and headed out.  Traffic was pretty rough on the way back to Phoenix.  However, we did make it in enough time that we were able to get an earlier flight and make it home by 8pm.